Will woolly mammoths roam the frozen tundra of Russia again someday? Researchers have deciphered the extinct animal’s complete genetic code. They recently published the genome sequence in Current Biology. It could help scientists who want to bring the mammoth back to life.
God put a copy of every living creature’s genome into each of its cells in the form of DNA. It serves as a blueprint or instructions. DNA contains all the information needed to build and maintain an organism.
Woolly mammoths roamed the Earth thousands of years ago. About as big as African elephants, they had long curved tusks. Thick, hairy coats protected them from cold in frigid climates. Small ears held in body heat.
The DNA sequenced by scientists came from woolly mammoths discovered in Siberia. Because of the permafrost—a layer of soil that stays frozen year-round—the animals remained frozen for thousands of years.
Love Dalen of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm is an author of the study published in Current Biology. In an interview with the BBC, he says, “It would be a lot of fun (in principle) to see a living mammoth, to see how it behaves and how it moves.”
However, recreating the woolly mammoth isn’t a goal of Dr. Dalen’s research team. He thinks it would require experiments on elephants that could cause them to suffer. He also noted that it takes many unrelated mammoths to create a healthy gene pool for reproduction. And with other creatures rapidly headed toward extinction, saving those animals is a better use of resources.
Not everyone agrees. The Long Now Foundation of San Francisco wants to combine the woolly mammoth’s genome with the endangered Asian elephant. By adding characteristics of the mammoth to elephants, the altered animals could be equipped to live in cold climates in northern Eurasia and North America. The foundation’s scientists say this would be good for the environment. The new pachyderms should thrive in the cold, fertilizing the tundra grasslands and preventing tree growth there.
A South Korean company, Sooam Biotech, shares a similar goal. It wants to save dwindling pachyderms from extinction by introducing them to unpopulated habitats, where they will have room to multiply. Sooam has already collected flesh and blood from a very well-preserved mammoth. It hopes to find usable DNA to transplant into an Asian elephant egg. This could allow an elephant surrogate to give birth to a woolly mammoth clone.
What do you think? Should scientists try to bring back the woolly mammoth?
